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Project Linus donates 50 blankets to foster kids

More volunteer blanket-makers needed to help

ByJENNI GRUBBS Times Staff Writer

Posted:
01/12/2013 08:44:18 AM MST

From left, Mickayla Zink, Karen Zink and Gloria Zink look through the 50 blankets being donated through Project Linus to Morgan County Department of Human Services for local foster children. Gloria Zink is the coordinator of the Morgan County Chapter of Project Linus, a nonprofit organization that makes and provides blankets to sick or emotionally hurting children. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

Blankets can provide warmth, comfort and a sense of security.

And that was the case for the Linus character in the comic strip "Peanuts," which always portrayed him as carrying around his blanket.

A nonprofit group called Project Linus helps provide blankets to sick and emotionally hurting children.

The Morgan County Chapter of Project Linus recently donated 50 blankets to the Morgan County Department of Human Services. The blankets will be distributed to local foster kids, according to Morgan County Foster Care Coordinator Sharon Ruyle.

Gathering the homemade blankets for distribution was a labor of love for Gloria Zink, the Project Linus Morgan County Chapter coordinator.

Every blanket created and donated to sick or hurting kids through Project Linus bears this tag, which has a picture of the nonprofit organization's namesake, Linus from the "Peanuts" comic strip, who always carried a security blanket. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

"I had lots of help," she said, explaining that most of the blankets were made by other Colorado chapters, including in southwest Denver and Fort Collins, and then were given to the Morgan County chapter for distribution.

But some came from Fort Morgan people, as well, including from Girl Scout Troop No. 3334 and St. Charles Episcopal Church members.

Project Linus was founded in the 1990s by a Denver woman who read a magazine story about a child suffering from leukemia whose blanket helped her get through chemotherapy.

Today, there are chapters in all 50 states and volunteers, called "blanketeers," make blankets and afghans to give to children who are sick or who have been abused or are otherwise hurting physically or emotionally.

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Unfortunately, foster kids often fit that description, and Zink thought that Morgan County's foster care program would be a good place to take the blankets her organization makes and donates.

The 50 blankets that Zink recently dropped off at Morgan County DHS, with some help from her daughter-in-law Karen Zink and granddaughter Mickayla Zink, were of all different patterns and colors and included quilts, knitted afghans and receiving blankets for babies.

Karen Zink loads a bag of blankets onto a cart to take into Morgan County Department of Human Services as Foster Care Coordinator Sharon Ruyle looks on. Ruyle will distribute the donated blankets to local foster kids. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

"I think you have a big variety from birth through age 18, from small to single-bed size," Gloria Zink told Ruyle. "It's a great variety of people's work."

Each one of the blankets had one thing in common, though: a tag bearing the Project Linus logo sewn into it.

Ruyle assured Gloria Zink that she would be able to distribute all 50 of the blankets.

"Every child loves a blanket of their own," Gloria Zink said.

She got involved with Project Linus in January 2010 after seeing it featured on a sewing show she watches.

"My husband had just died and this just spoke to my heart," she said, "that I could do that instead of grieving."

Gloria Zink has sewed all her life, even teaching people to sew and knit.

From left, Karen Zink, Gloria Zink and Sharon Ruyle look through some of the 50 blankets being donated through Project Linus to Morgan County Department of Human Services for local foster children. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

"Now that I'm 75, I'm filling the time by sharing my passion of sewing and creating," Gloria Zink said. "And my love of children means I need to help them, especially those who are hurting."

But Zink also needs more blanketeers to help fill the need for those blankets to give to kids.

She is looking to grow her blanketeer ranks to get ready for National Blanketeer Day, which is the second Saturday in February.

She said that in the past Girl Scouts and church groups have helped with this, but that anyone would be welcome to make a quilt, fleece blanket or flannel receiving blanket or knit or crochet an afghan to donate with Project Linus.

Mickayla Zink looks through a pile of handmade blankets that her grandmother's nonprofit group, the Morgan County Chapter of Project Linus, donated for local foster kids. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

Zink's not picky about the fabric type or how neat or fancy the stitching is or what color the yarn is, and

She also welcomes blankets made by women or men, adults or children. And Project Linus also accepts donations of fabric and yarn, as well as money. Zink said that remnants or scraps of fabric can be used to make the blankets and partially finished projects are also welcome.

"The men are just as good at making the fleece blankets as the women are," she said. "I'd love to get whatever they have, whatever their talent, or if they have a project started and never finished it. Yarn, too. I'll take those balls. We can use it to finish off the edges" of other blankets.

Ruyle said she thought it was "the perfect time to get the word out" about Project Linus and the need for blanketeers.

"As the winter doldrums set in, what better project to take on than creating a blanket for a sick or hurting child?" she said.

Ruyle said that she was excited about DHS Foster Care partnering with Project Linus.

She called it both good for the foster care program and good for the community at large because the foster families feel the support from the community through the blanket donations.

"I think it's very meaningful for them," she said of the foster kids who would receive the blankets. "It gives them a sense of comfort when they're at a time of crisis."

She said that foster kids often come to DHS with "just the clothes on their backs."

"If they have something of their own that they can say, 'This is mine,' that makes them feel special," Ruyle said.

She said that Morgan County averages around 50 children in foster care at any one time, but that there was room for only about half of those kids with foster families in Morgan County, with the rest often going to families elsewhere in Colorado, such as Greeley or Colorado Springs.

Ruyle said she is always on the lookout for families willing to host foster children and that there was a big need for what she called "step-down homes" for after teens complete treatment programs for various problems.

"Some of our children come from homes where they didn't get nurtured," Ruyle said. "A blanket is comforting to big kids, too."

She said that the blankets would be put in the placement bags that are given to children entering the foster care program. The bags include a change of clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush and a stuff animal -- and now a blanket.

"A blanket is a nice thing to tuck in there," Ruyle said.

In addition to the foster care program, the Morgan County Chapter of Project Linus has also donated blankets to sick children at Colorado Plains Medical Center and East Morgan County Hospital.

Anyone who wants to sew or create blankets for Project Linus can contact Zink at 867-4009.

And homemade blankets for donation to Project Linus can be dropped off at Brush Sew N Vac, 206 Clayton St. in Brush.

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